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Fresh From the Slab.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a coroner. No, really, that’s what I wanted to do. Yeah, okay, stop looking at me like that. I know it’s weird, but hear me out. Couple of things played into this morbid fascination. The first was that I loved science. Biology, AP Bio, Anatomy & Phys – you name it, I loved it. Chemistry I was less “ooh and aah” over for some reason, but biological function? Dissecting cats and pigs and starfish and worms? You bet. My cat-dissection team even had a nickname for our cat. It was Socks. Because when we, uhh, peeled the cat? We couldn’t get the fur off his feet. Gallows humor even at sixteen.

Rest in peace, Socks. You were good to give your life to my scalpel.

So the reasonable person says, “Hillary, if you loved science, why not be a doctor?” The real reason? I’ve never been a particular fan of people. Don’t get me wrong, I have friends, make friends pretty well and generally enjoy being around them, but I like to do it on my terms. If Cranky-Ass Cranky comes into my doctor’s office and proceeds to be a turdmonster in my general direction, I’m going to want to stab him with a needle. In the eye. I think that’s against the Hippocratic Oath, to stab grumpy old men for grumping, so I avoided lawsuits by avoiding science with live, talking people. Science with non-alive, non-talking dead people it was, then.

Another reason I slanted toward this whole coroner bit was I read a lot — and I do mean a lot — of crime fiction. Non-fiction crime stuff, too. And I’m not talking James Patterson stuff. I’m talking books written by people who were coroners or medical examiners and they took that knowledge and parlayed it into thrillers. Those were my faves – when the authors really delved into the science and criminology slant of the stories they crafted. I know Thomas Harris is a boring-ass read for a lot of people. The dude is about as dry as Michener for presentation of words, but hot damn if I didn’t eat up all the creepy little details. And knowing that SILENCE OF THE LAMBS was based on REAL apeshit murderer creepers? Yep. Was all over it. HELTER SKELTER on the non-fiction side, yep. Anything by Bugliosi, actually, because he presented his cases in a compelling way.

Here’s the really sick part, though. I loved the pictures. I don’t even know why. This is what makes me think that maybe I’m 4.3% serial killer because I am the worst rubbernecker. It’s not like it excites me. It’s actually quite the opposite. I’m so horrified I can’t look away, and yet I’m compelled to flip the page and digest the next awful thing. When there were pictures from a Ted Bundy crime scene linked online? I knew I shouldn’t. But I did. Worse? It was so horrific the images stuck with me and gave me nightmares, but every single goddamned time someone puts crime scene photos in front of me, I look.

It’s probably no great surprise that I love the show Bones or all those real crime autopsy shows. I love anything that shows FBI profilers. I’ll watch documentaries about serial killers or unsolved crimes any day of the week. When I really delve into ‘WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS, HILLARY?” I guess it’s that I can’t fathom people being that cruel or terrible to other human beings. I’m a pretty smart gal. I understand a lot of things even if I haven’t directly experienced them. This is one of the things I can and never will be able to grok – WHY and HOW people are like this. Something is broken about them and I’ll never grasp that. I think it’s that mystery that keeps me coming back. It’s like, “If I watch enough or read enough, one day I’ll get how someone can get so utterly batshit.”

I suppose in a way I shouldn’t want that because that might make me one of those chicks that writes to deathrow inmates with letters like I TOTALLY GET YOU, SLASHER MIKEY. I UNDERSTAND YOUR PAIN. Only I wouldn’t because my mother would beat me to death with a shoe. Justifiably so, in this case.

Anyway, the point of all of this! I’m a writer. I write horror. Some people would think with this coroner wanna-be background, I’d write thrillers or more realistic horror, but I actually have no leaning that way for the very simple reason of, “It scares me too much.” Silly but true, human cruelty scares the piss out of me. I find if I gussy up my horror in the supernatural, if I send a horrible monster your way, I’m okay with it because it’s not real. I can tell myself it’s not real and so the maimings aren’t something plausible and thus acceptable. But after so much exposure to how bent some people in our world are? Yeah, I don’t want to write about the real life horrors because those happen too much. Watch the news if you want to see that stuff. I simply can’t put it in my books.

Except I probably will one day because that’s how my rat-trap brain works, but still. For now if you see something creepy spewing from my fingers? It’s gonna be the non-possible. The Boogie Man and Slender Man and Bloody Mary and all that jazz. Fake is good. Fake is fun. Fake is not putting body parts in freezers so you can have Charlie pot pie later on.

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4 thoughts on “Fresh From the Slab.”

Well said. I remember how fascinated you were with the whole profiler/ autopsy thing. And Boy George (I’m sure both fascinations were related). Plus, living in a spooky old house didn’t hurt. Please note? You start corresponding with locked up creepies? It’ll be more than a shoe, child.

Are you watching Hannibal? From what I’ve seen of it on tumblr you should be watching Hannibal. (I am not watching it because I have a weird love/hate with realistic gore on tv. I can watch Bones though for some reason). Also, have you read Stiff by Mary Roach? After reading this blog I am 99.9% sure that you have, but I’m not even into grisly death stuff and I found that book fascinating. On the other hand I did sorta want to be a doctor, but I’m glad I didn’t because my tolerance for dealing with people is pretty low these days haha. I can deal with blood & guts in real life with no problem (I was a volunteer EMT for a while). But if I watch/read horror genre stuff it has to be fantastical. I can’t deal with stuff that could possibly, remotely happen in real life. Texas Chainsaw? HELL NAW. Saw 1, 2, 4 or 8? Nope nope nope. The Exorcist? Bring it on.

Hannibal is absolutely on my “To-Do” though I’ve heard mixed reviews from people about it. I’ll probably be lazy and wait for it to be on Netflix because I’m all about the “path of least resistance.” However, after devouring RED DRAGON, yeah. Yeah, I need to watch it. 😀

And yes, I’ve read her. Fantastic stuff. I think I’m building up to another criminology binge coming up, so I’ll have to hit the interwebs to find some similar titles.

Hi! I’m Hillary.

My YA debut MARY: The Summoning, a YA Horror retelling of the Bloody Mary myth, sold at auction to Hyperion and hit number two on the New York Times e-book bestseller list. I've also published THE AWESOME with Ravenstone under the name Eva Darrows, which received starred reviews in both Kirkus and PW.

My next three publications are an adult horror novel in the GODS & MONSTERS series for Solaris, due out in December of 2016. Spring of 2017 will see the YA contemporary DEAD LITTLE MEAN GIRL under the name Eva Darrows published through Harlequin Teen. Fall of 2017 sees the YA horror THE WAGON WITCH'S APPRENTICE under Hillary Monahan through Delacorte/Random House.